


with you on top

by Blake



Series: 30 Days of Depeche Mode Bagginshield ficlets [7]
Category: TOLKIEN J. R. R. - Works & Related Fandoms, The Hobbit (Jackson Movies), The Hobbit - All Media Types
Genre: First Kiss, Love Confessions, M/M, if you can call it that
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-21
Updated: 2020-04-21
Packaged: 2021-03-02 01:07:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,725
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23766625
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Blake/pseuds/Blake
Summary: It’s easy enough to get his books all back in the very methodical order he like them to sit in on the shelves. The armchair, he can’t quite get right, no matter how many minute changes he makes to the angle, but it’s no bit matter. It’s the slow, gradually nagging type of madness, the “does this soup have a pinch too much salt, or a pinch too little?” madness, rather than the overwhelming kind.The garden, however. The garden.
Relationships: Bilbo Baggins/Thorin Oakenshield
Series: 30 Days of Depeche Mode Bagginshield ficlets [7]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1705147
Comments: 12
Kudos: 109





	with you on top

It seems that if a hobbit is presumed dead, his relatives are happy to divvy up his worldly goods, but much less eager to take ownership of the pruning and weeding.

It’s easy enough to get his books all back in the very methodical order he like them to sit in on the shelves. The armchair, he can’t quite get right, no matter how many minute changes he makes to the angle, but it’s no bit matter. It’s the slow, gradually nagging type of madness, the “does this soup have a pinch too much salt, or a pinch too little?” madness, rather than the overwhelming kind.

The garden, however. The garden.

 _The irony of helping others move into their home, only to come back to one’s own and find it in ruin! The berry vines and apple trees are brambles, and there’s nothing but dandelion and mustard in sight_ , he writes in the letter he sends to Erebor. It’s addressed to no one in particular. He wouldn’t presume to address it to the King.

 _You may inform your king that I require additional reparations to cover the cost of completely replanting my hill_ , he adds at the end, trusting his friends to recognize his facetious overstatement. His stomach also threatens to drop at the thought of anyone speaking of this letter to Thorin, and the smile in Thorin’s eyes if they were to read him this part.

But that’s another issue. An undersalted-soup-madness issue. The kind that will likely never be resolved before the soup is eaten up.

No matter the angle, his armchair is comfortable enough for his back and shoulders to rest in after a long day of reaching to prune overgrown branches and squatting to pull weeds. Spring is already in full bloom, so he’s not exactly hopeful about producing a bountiful harvest this year, but there’s still work to be done, aches to complain about, and memories to avoid.

He sits in his armchair and stares at the fire, remembering blue eyes in orange light, and the smile in them, which Bilbo had waited to see before deciding it was safe to leave. If Thorin had recovered enough to smile, then he had recovered enough to say anything that needed saying. And so Bilbo could leave, knowing that all that “ _ours_ ” business and the nonsense about having him stand beside the throne and those greedy looks up and down Bilbo’s body—that all didn’t need saying. They were awkward artifacts of the dragon-sickness, better forgotten by everyone involved and never examined.

At least Bilbo had grown stronger after that whole mad journey with the dwarves and their insufferably bright-eyed king. He finds himself thinking of the breadth of Sting against his palm when he’s taking the pruning shears to the tallest branches of his cherry tree. When he’s knelt down, picking dandelion greens since his winter garden provides nothing else, he recalls the breathless burn of walking up and down slopes of slippery gold pieces, following Thorin around to make sure he didn’t hurt himself, and twisting his own ankles a few times in the process, if he’s honest.

He’s satisfied enough with the handful of tomatoes and peas and the two rows of corn that he manages to plant with the help of the gardener he’s hired. He has got more than enough gold to trade for food to get him through until his winter crop of root vegetables, and is content to spend the rest of the summer tending to his wildflowers and his books.

When Thorin Oakenshield shows up at the gate to his garden, it’s a bit of a surprise.

He doesn’t turn down the extra help. Perhaps he would, if he weren’t so overwhelmingly stunned by the presence of a dwarf king kneeling in his future pumpkin patch, getting his hands dirty in the earth Bilbo has cultivated for decades. And then pulling up all of the spent spring peas. And then turning over the compost. And then dragging all of the fallen branches from the last rain storm into a pile. And then clipping the weeds where Bilbo indicates he’ll be growing potatoes in a few months’ time.

“This wasn’t written in the contract, you know,” Bilbo does say on the hard-won occasion of having succeeded in getting Thorin to take a break somewhere between the compost and the branches.

“Perhaps we should draw up another, then. My service as your gardener until your home is restored, exactly how you want it, exactly as you remember it to be.”

Bilbo leans on the end of a shovel, thinking how greatly improved the loveliness of his garden is by Thorin’s presence in it. His stomach twists in that terrible way it does every time he has caught himself wishing for impossible things. “Well those might be two different things.”

Thorin ducks his head slightly, just enough to keep the sun from washing out the blue of his eyes, and making Bilbo dizzy in the process. “Why is that?” There’s a hint of a smile on his lips, which makes Bilbo feel very silly indeed for daydreaming about a handsome king.

“Because I remember it as we left it in Spring, but, ah, as it is currently Summer, I want it to look like a Summer garden. Yes.” Bilbo turns and leaves to get a cool glass of water for himself, leaving Thorin to the fallen branches.

It’s not until halfway through supper that Bilbo remembers the subject of payment.

“I need no payment,” Thorin protests, looking as though it’s an amusing, ridiculous idea. And perhaps it is, but surely no more ridiculous than Thorin serving him as a gardener.

“Oh, that’s good then,” Bilbo sighs into his soup, clinging to his jokes to avoid how perfectly Thorin fits in his dining room. He always did. Bilbo has long remembered the sight of Thorin carefully, humbly eating his meal at Bilbo’s table after his company had transformed it into a raucous tavern. Thorin had always looked nice at the head of his table, in the same way a beautiful silver candlestick can brighten and enrich an otherwise homey room. “Because I don’t think I have anything in the whole house that’s quite up to your standards.”

Thorin raises an eyebrow. “I’m sure you have some pretty thing I could covet, if I dared to ask for anything besides your forgiveness.”

Bilbo badly missed this banter he shared only with Thorin, this engagement of wits which made it feel like they were equals, and which felt like a path to—well, to something. He’s lost in the warm, tingling feeling in his stomach, the pleasure of having it back, and the grief of inevitably losing it again. It takes him a moment to catch on to what Thorin has said. “My forgiveness?” he asks skeptically.

Thorin nods solemnly, lowering his eyes to his plate.

Bilbo’s not ready to talk about any past events which might require forgiveness, because that would bring up the fact that he can’t forgive someone he’s not even cross with, and that he can’t be cross with Thorin because he’s—well, because Thorin is perfect and looks so very dashing in Bilbo’s dining room. “Well, my forgiveness comes at the very high price of washing up after supper. I don’t suppose kings know how to do that?”

Thorin carefully studies his eyes for a moment, searching for something that Bilbo does not let him see. Then he softens into a smile. “You forget I have spent more of my years washing my own dishes than I have spent feasting in royal halls.”

Not much later, they’re sitting outside smoking grey clouds into the warm summer night, and Thorin starts up that whole forgiveness nonsense again. “I should have told you of my feelings beforehand, so you could have kept yourself far away from me, and danger,” he murmurs brokenly, despite Bilbo’s attempts to wave the subject off like a mosquito.

The words catch up with him, though, and even the tips of his ears burn in interest. “Your feelings beforehand? You had feelings beforehand?” he asks on this purely academic matter. He had always been of the scholarly opinion that the dragon-sickness had tricked Thorin into thinking Bilbo was something special, because there was no other explanation.

“Far more than I ever could have expressed in my madness.”

Bilbo frantically sucks at his pipe, hoping it will convince the world to make sense. The King of Erebor returning his love is more than Bilbo has let himself consider outside of his dreams. He hums thoughtfully, looking out at the garden. He shifts an inch or two closer to Thorin’s bulk on the bench beside him. “I have just realized what my garden needs, to have it perfectly suit my wishes,” he says, though he realized this hours ago and is only brave enough to speak it now, under the dim stars.

“What is that?”

Bilbo laughs, in disbelief of himself before he even gets the words out. “Your presence in it.”

Suddenly Thorin’s a great deal closer, lower in his seat than his regal posture usually allows, breath warm against Bilbo’s already hot face. Bilbo can smell his hair and his sweat. Bilbo could move just an inch to _kiss_ him if he wanted to. “May I kiss you, please?” Thorin asks, as his hand curls around Bilbo’s neck, impossibly gentle.

Bilbo moves just an inch to kiss him, pressing deep into the plush of his lips and the coarse embrace of his beard, teasing out the taste of Thorin’s breath. He doesn’t know how they got here, but he knows he never wants to leave.

Thorin pulls away to press their foreheads together, and to Bilbo it feels like a kiss. “You would be the pretty treasure I take as my reward, no matter how many years of service it may take to earn it.”

Bilbo has never felt so much in one moment as he does in this one. Now that, for the first time, he lets himself think, _I’m in love_ , it fills his entire body with buzzing light. “Forget the contract,” he hisses, kissing Thorin until he can feel the shape of his smile, and then climbing up onto his knees and sitting astride Thorin’s broad hips. “I’m all yours.”


End file.
